Pagan Poetry
by ignitetheballoon
Summary: Katniss speaks with Peeta the night of their engagement. This is my first go at writing fanfiction of any kind. Written for the first round of Prompts in Panem this year.


**This is my first go at writing fan fiction of any kind. I submitted this story for this year's Prompts in Panem day 6. (Visit them on Tumblr. Lots of awesome stories to devour) Big thank you to my beta aka bff aka wench aka disillusionedheart for The late night question and answer/editing sessions that almost killed my soul, not to mention the over drinking of tea. Also big love and thanx to my pre-readers pseudopenname808, ilikewatchingyousleep, lenai17, and 30smmof2. And...the wonderful dynamic duo alonglineofbread and yourpeetaisshowing for continuous support and motivating people to like me! (Frog kisses!) All of these wonderful peeps can be found on tumblr. **

**Summary: Katniss speaks with Peeta the night of their engagement.**

_**"I thought he wanted it, anyway," I say.**_

_**"Not like this," Haymitch says. "He wanted it to be real."**_

_**Catching Fire —page 73**_

**Disclaimer: Hey guess what! I don't own any part of the Hunger Games series. I have my own idea and characters to deal with. I just like playing in other people's sand boxes.**

**I hope you enjoy it.**

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She's been watching him for quite some time, but it is only now she makes the decision to approach him. There is no way of really knowing whether he knows she is there, or if he's all together ignoring the presence of any other person. He seems so within himself.

He leans, his clothes unchanged from the night's proceedings, against the wall of glass that makes up the entire south end of the main room. The make-up he wears, combined with the lights below, create a sheen that glimmers against his skin. He puckers his lips, bringing his chin slightly up and over, and exhales, creating a milky thick line across the glass. After it disappears he says, "It's cold out there. You wouldn't know it being in here."

Again, she thinks on whether he realizes her existence there in the room. She comes close to him so that he may see her, but he says nothing. He blows onto the glass once more. However, this time she stretches her arm forward and pushes a single finger through the patch fog before it fades.

His hand lies flat against the glass, and very near. She intends it to be mildly playful, merely to get his attention, but when she lightly traces the moist tip of her finger a little ways down his wrist, the look she receives gives her cause to remember herself.

She steps a few paces back.

He watches her a moment before giving his attention back to the view below. His hands do not touch the glass again, and are instead put in his pants pockets. He balances slightly on his heels. His mouth parts for a moment, but then closes again.

She knows he will say _something_. He looks as if he's trying to clear his mind, to relay something in an exact fashion. She realizes this and wants to interrupt his always ready words, to make her excuses and leave. But she waits, wishing that he speak, and yet not alter one thing about this moment. She likes watching him this way.

"I have spent every moment of every day hoping that I might at least sense your presence, let alone have the chance to touch you. And now it seems that I shall have you forever." He speaks privately, as if he doesn't mean for her to hear. "This isn't what I wanted from you."

"What _do_ you want from me," she asks, whether she is meant to or not. She does not realize the weight of such a question.

He ducks his head away from her view. He doesn't answer.

She wants to be closer to him, to look on his face again. Her feet begin to move forward, but very close to the ground. "Haymitch said you wanted it to be real. What did he mean, Peeta?"

"What do you think he meant, Katniss," he asks abruptly, turning around to face her.

This falters her approach. However, he doesn't wait for an answer.

"Never mind," he continues, "this isn't your fault. I'm sorry. It's just that I'm terrified. I know you think I wanted this."

"But this isn't your fault _either_," she protests.

He ignores her words, saying further, "I keep thinking of different scenarios of my life, but each path I choose ends the same—a dead end. A wall, thick and," he carefully looks at her, "and terribly beautiful. I see it coming every time."

Her insides quiet. She grows uncomfortable under his gaze. "We shouldn't be talking about this. Aren't you tired?" She wants to walk away. She wants him to follow behind her. But as he looks at her, and she at him, neither move. And so there they stand; silent for a little while before she finally concedes, "Peeta, you above all have nothing to be ashamed of. You are good. You are perfect."

He smiles, but it is an unsettling one. "I think I can almost hate you for saying that."

Her throat becomes hot and strained, and when she exhales her breath staggers rather than streams from her mouth. She wants to take herself out of this moment. The realization, the sting of shame, overwhelms her so much that she immediately propels herself to a time when such an opinion against her would prove moot. This time just so happens to be only hours ago. It had been so terrifying, and yet his eyes…. They had looked into her. "You've never said that to me before." Her tone is absent. Her mind is somewhere else entirely.

"What? That I hate you? I suppose the time never arrived—"

"No," she says, waking, yet still so out of the present. "That you love me."

The weak smile on his face disappears completely. He is very quiet. He seems to peer into her. His mouth gives a slight tick before answering, "Again, the time never arrived."

Her eyes focus. "So, you chose to say it in front of an audience?"

"A crowd always enjoys a grand gesture."

"Then it wasn't real?"

He frowns, looking full into her face. "You tell me."

"Peeta…" What is she trying to say?

"Yes," he returns. The sound of his voice embodies one who will wait for an answer.

"I know this isn't how you intended it to happen, but—"

"No," he says, startling her when he hits the wall of glass. His body is fully toward her now. "You don't get to do that. Not now." He turns away, seeming to dismiss her, when suddenly he speaks again, his voice fast and low. "Would _it_ have happened in any particular way, Katniss? If I had ever puffed myself up enough to speak to you, do you think _it _would have ever happened in any other way than this?"

"That isn't fair, Peeta," she argues.

"Fine," he states, in such resolution that it frightens her. "I love you." He looks at her. "Katniss Everdeen, I love you. Now what?"

She can't speak. He's paralyzed her. Should one feel as she at such a declaration, something so akin to anger?

What's best is that she go away from him. Now. But she feels ridiculous and blames him for it, resulting in the full removal of caution. "Why?"

"More questions?"

"Are you tired now?"

"Not in the way that you think," he replies.

"Why, Peeta," she puts to him again, so lost at the very idea of him loving her at all.

"Why what, Katniss?" He will not make it easy on her.

"Why do you love me?"

"Why do you care? And what difference would it make to answer you? What would you do with the information?"

"I care," she says, but it is a weak defense, for in that same moment she processes the consequence of what her confession will produce. However, it is much too late to take it back. He stands in waiting for an explanation.

Truth. Trust. What does truth matter, even now? What difference would the truth of his reasons for loving her bring that wouldn't make the situation worse? He was right in protecting his feelings from the likes of her.

When she says nothing, he looks away, bracing his hands on the glass wall.

She feels ashamed. She's poked him, prodded him to speak of circumstances he was right to keep to himself. She hates herself for what she's done to him. She despises the parts of her that yearn to know his mind.

Her retreat catches his eye. "Where are you going?

"We shouldn't talk about this," she says, pausing. She keeps her back to him, though she doesn't feel the penetration of his gaze any less.

"You've already said that," he states.

"We should go to bed," she insists.

"Your bed or mine tonight, I wonder?"

She wants to turn and face him, to take such words up with him, to explain herself. However, everything within her pulses faster, warning her that such a move would only be against her.

"Well," he says, clearly amazed at her change of course, or perhaps lack of retort. And why shouldn't he be?

She can feel him coming nearer.

"Then I think it best I keep it to myself."

"I shouldn't have asked," she affirms, speaking clear and fast. She looks partly his way, but doesn't look directly at him. "I'm sorry."

It isn't possible to make him understand the mistake she's made.

"There is so much yet to lose," he begins, his voice practically thrumming against the back of her neck. "How much more would I lose if I told you the bare bones of it?"

At his words she feels both relief and dread at being pushed away. Shielded and yet unwelcome. He must know she does not deserve him.

She continues away from him, when quite suddenly, he is there, bringing her body almost completely to him. Her first impulse is to struggle.

"I'll let you go," he says. "I'll let you leave me, but I need to be clear about one thing."

He turns her by the waist to face him. His grip bunches her gown, stretching it against her stomach. His hands glide from the fabric to the skin of her arms. She jolts in his hold from the low temperature of his hands. Her breathing turns to a hum.

Tentatively his hand creeps, caressing her neck upward until his fingers have inserted themselves into her hair, locking around her scalp. Gently, he directs her face to align with his own.

She doesn't resist the movement, but she will not meet his eye.

He places his other hand at her hip, but doesn't move to bring her nearer. "Look at me," he urges.

She trembles. In this moment, he is so large. He is so much more than she can handle.

"Katniss." The demand is so soft.

She can't let him hear the way she wants to say "yes". Instead, she does as he desires, bringing her eyes to meet his, fearing what he might do.

"I want to tell you something," he continues. "I want to tell _you_ something_._ And after I do, nothing else need be said about it. Only don't pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about."

Being so available to him, her body begs to fall forward; however, he plants the palm of his hand hard against her.

"You may not want to know why I feel what I feel for you, and I may not want to tell you…but you will know the magnitude."

She grabs onto his arms to steady herself. She tries to look away from him, seeing that he's noticed her struggle, but he holds her fast.

"You asked me what I want from you."

She wants to give herself up.

"The answer is _everything_. Honestly…" he presses, "…truly," he finishes. His face is so dangerously open.

She can't see this. She closes her eyes. She listens to the way his mouth parts and comes together again, feels his breath fan down her neck. (But this too is a dangerous point of focus). She doesn't want to hear anymore.

"Peeta—"

His hands pulse around her, quieting her protest, impelling her eyes to open. "And that is why," he continues, "I am the most selfish person you will ever know." Removing his hand from her hair, he cups her face, forcing her chin slightly upward with his thumb. "I want you so badly..."

All sound is him.

"But I would rather bang my head against that wall of yours, cherishing every progressive crumble, than be given a way over it." His thumb makes tiny never ending circles on the sides of her face, every other revolution tickling her earlobe. His eyes fall closed. "It scares me what I would forsake for you."

Watching him this way, she wonders, for the first time, if this is what people look like when they pray. The smile on his lips, though small, seems to hold such acute freedom, though he had seemed in so much pain moments ago. She wants to touch them.

How has he done this—made her world so still? Yes, she fears the power he seems to have over her, but even more does she fear the power she has over him. How is she to be so responsible for someone in _this_ way, what with everyone else she must look after?

She leans heavily into his hand, covering it with her own. "I don't know how much…or what to give you."

"I told you, you needn't say anything." He places both hands on her face, making her see him again. "But if you must have this answer…surely not anything that has a limit."

Her hands move to the front of him, clutching the much too smooth fabric of his shirt.

He is moving too fast. She can't keep up, and yet she has no choice. No one can truly spare so much of themselves without giving up something in return, not even he. But there is something terrible within her that hopes that he can, that he will succeed.

His eyes are all devotion. They don't seem human or natural. She thinks of her mother. She remembers her father. She wants to cry out against him and such speeches and promises, because there will come a time when there is no more to say, everything is broken, and nothing can be done.

"Peeta—"

"Hold on to me," he whispers into her hair, as if he _knows_ that nothing can be done.

THE END

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**Thanx for reading. **

**I love being on the bottom. ;) (BAD JOKES will be a frequency) **


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